


Chamomile Tea

by kennykota



Category: Ring of Honor, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 11:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14307801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennykota/pseuds/kennykota
Summary: Kenny is a little concerned about his boyfriend and his strange late-night tweeting habits. But Kenny has a lot of concerns.Prompt sent from breadclubrising on tumblr; since I was begging everyone to let me write some Golden Lovers fluff.





	Chamomile Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anyone who sent me a prompt on tumblr today! I'm working away on them. This one is based off of that infamous tweet about chamomile tea that broke me in pieces.

I’m not stupid – I know Kota well enough to realize there is no way the boy will accept my offering of a calming mug of chamomile tea if I disturb him and ask if he’d like me to make him a drink. For one, he’s not a fan of any kind of flavored tea, and then there’s the fact that he won’t want to be disturbed while he’s in the zone.

The zone is what I call the state between wake and sleep that Kota spends at least an hour in before he finally drops off. I blame myself for him still practically being awake at 4 in the morning, I pouted every time he tried to drag me off to bed instead of playing more video games, and he can’t deal with me pretending to be upset with him, so he begrudgingly agreed to watching me progress through more and more levels. A few times he’d asked if I hadn’t ‘already played that bit’, and I ignored him, because he’s not blind, he knew full well that I kept having to replay parts that were too difficult for me to conquer. I blame my own tiredness, hence why I’m close to joining him in the zone and letting us retire to the bedroom.

While he dropped off, he started to mutter to himself, a sleep talk that was quite difficult for me to translate. I consider myself to be proficient in Japanese, fluent even, I’ve been speaking the language since I was a teenager, but Kota’s broken speech and grumbled words were a challenge to decipher. It was only when he stirred and grabbed his phone to start vigorously typing that I pieced together something about strangulation, and murder – fucking hell, what kind of weird things go through his head when he’s sleep deprived? I must have misheard him.

But no, sure enough, as soon as I stand up to wander into the kitchen, does my own cell beep with the notification of an incoming tweet from Kota. I’d feel embarrassed about admitting that I have my boyfriends tweets set to notifications, but I’m just going to embrace it – of course I do. It’s a darn good job I’m that obsessed with him, it turns out, because his most recent tweet confirms that I got the general gist of what he was muttering to himself in his sleeping stupor correct. Great, I think to myself. My boyfriend is an absolute nutjob.

The only remedy I can think of is chamomile tea. I figure if he’s that far into the zone already, maybe he’ll work on autopilot and drink anything I put into his hands. Then I’ll help him into bed and hope he has a good rest. The main reason I’m really worried, as funny as all this sounds, is that Kota has been suffering with some pretty awful nightmares recently. They could be anxiety induced, so maybe some weird herbs in boiling hot water will help ward them off for tonight. The nightmares are also the reason I didn’t want him to go to bed without me. I’ve felt a surge of affection towards him stronger than I ever have – be it with Kota or anyone else – since we got back together. He brings out the protective side in me, like I don’t want to have to let him go ever again.

I pour myself a mug, too, in case that makes it seem more natural for him to drink without questioning me.

“What’s that?” Is the first thing Kota says when I return to our living room area and set the drink on the table in front of where he’s curled up on the sofa.

“Tea,” I try.

“Smells weird.”

“Does it?” I answer, innocently, taking a long slurp from my own mug. “Mhm. Tastes like the one we usually drink to me. Delicious.”

He humors me for about two seconds. The minute the liquid hits his lips, he squeezes his eyes closed, very over dramatically. “What are you doing to me?”

“You sounded like you were having another nightmare. Thought this might… calm you down.”

“You poisoning me is your version of calming me down?”

“Poisoning you? It’s… it’s just chamomile tea.”

“Could've fooled me.” He sticks his bottom lip out and looks up at me, mimicking the kind of pout I used to keep him up with me in the first place. I roll my eyes.

“Okay, Kota-chan. Can you at least… hold it to your nose or something? You might absorb the… I don’t know,” I trail off as he starts to laugh at me.

“You worry too much, you know that, right?” 

“I should probably lay off a little, right?”

Kota shakes his head. “No, no. It’s sweet. You’re very sweet,” he pauses. “You gonna sit down with me or something?”

“We should probably go to bed.”

“Why didn’t you say that six hours ago? At a sensible time? I’m comfortable here.”

I have nothing against the idea of curling up on the sofa and just basking in his presence, since I still haven’t quite gotten used to having him back in my life, it’s been a short, quick few months of getting to know each other again and rekindling the personal relationship we had, alongside training 24/7 to gain back that special something we had in the ring as well. Down time, us time, has been a rare and cherished gift, and although we have a busy day tomorrow, I give in to Kota’s request. I’d probably spend the last few hours of darkness staring at him rather than sleeping whether I was in bed or not.

I sit down and tuck my legs up, lying down onto his lap as I adjust myself to get comfortable. His hand immediately goes to my hair and I shiver ever so slightly at the sensation of him twirling my curls around his fingers. He always does this, so gentle with me, and easily amused by how the strands of hair spring back when he pulls at them. If it were anyone else doing this, and making a habit of this, it would annoy the crap out of me, but Kota’s always just been different. 

I don’t know what it is about him, but from day one – really, from day zero, before I ever got to meet him face to face – I just knew he was a something that was meant to be in my life. It took until the first time we actually interacted to know that was in a romantic sense, but this is why I keep saying that he’s my destiny. I call him the reason that I ever made it as a wrestler, because let’s face it, I wouldn’t have made it to Japan if I had never made it my mission to face off against him, and Japan, tagging with him, that’s what set me off on my career.

I ignore what happened in between then and now. We both do. We’ve talked about it a few times, agreed that maybe we did what we had to do as singles wrestlers and it was for the best, and now it’s a moot point of conversation. We don’t want to dwell on that time, because while I did some great work, and consider Kota to have, too (he doesn’t, he’s way too critical of himself), we were broken up. We weren’t on good terms, there was a long period of time where we never spoke about each other, let alone to each other.  
I never want to let that happen again. 

“What are you thinking about?” 

“Nothing,” I say, automatically, not wanting to bring up anything that might put a downer on this moment.

“I felt you sigh. Don’t make me worry about you in turn, now. Are you just overthinking again?”

“Mhhm.”

“Kenny problems or Tyson problems?” 

There’s a distinct difference between the two types of ‘overthinking’ I can get myself into, where I go quiet and let my head get loud instead. That’s just the kind of person I am, when I’m performing I run my mouth, trying to be the kind of outspoken and dramatic person that I wish I really was, just to give my brain a break. Kenny problems are the things I need to worry about that are do with my job, of course, and those are the concerns I’m happy to voice with my partner, because they usually affect him these days considering we tag together full time again. Our profession is a strange one, I spend so much time as a character, an exaggerated version of myself, that I take on all the issues and problems and hurt that he experiences in the wrestling world. I can’t always switch off. When I do, that’s when there’s room for Tyson problems, which are often hard for me to decipher, kind of like Kota’s sleep talking. I never know if I’m letting my job get to me, or if there’s really something on my mind. It’s kind of overwhelming – definitely a downside to making my persona something so close to the real me. 

“Tyson problems,” I finally admit, turning my face to nuzzle into the bare skin of his leg. “Don’t worry about me, though. Seriously.”

“But how can I not?”

“If you really wanna make me feel better, you can drink up.” 

I feel his hand move away from my hair. “Alright, then.” I look back up to see, from the corner of my eye, him down the rest of his tea, probably cold by now, his grimace visible by just his furrowed brow. “There. You happy?”

“Very happy, Ibu-san,” I nod. “My Tyson problem was worrying that I was terrible at making tea, you see.”

“You’re funny.”

He doesn’t push me, though, probably figuring it was something along the lines of me remembering that time in our lives. “I love you,” is what he says, instead, and that’s all I need.

“I love you, too. Thank you for drinking my tea.”

“Anytime,” he says. We both sit up, in complete, ridiculous synchronization that only comes from years of double-teaming, so we can embrace each other. “Actually, not anytime. That’s just a stupid expression.”

“Kota,” I pull away just to plant a kiss on his lips. “Just humor me.”

“Anything for you,” he mumbles. “And I don’t just mean that as an expression.”

I should probably convince him to delete his strange tweet before too many people see it and worry about his state of mind – that’s my job, after all – but I end up too distracted by the reminder that I can now, again, just kiss him whenever I like, and we take advantage of that fact instead of getting any sleep at all. I can’t say either of us are angry about that.


End file.
